The main political opposition parties in the Irish parliament have made a united call on the Irish Government, a Coalition of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Greens, to join in the genocide case against the Israeli state at the International Court of Justice.
The original case was opened recently by the South African government and the Israeli Government, to some surprise, indicated it would attend and defend itself. It is due to begin public hearing 11-12 January.
The Irish Opposition parties represented in the call on the Irish Government represent a cross-section politically: Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, the Irish Labour Party and People Before Profit. Other smaller parties have one TD1 and there are many Independent TDs of varying hues.
Accompanying the party representatives at a press conference were Frances Black, independent Senator who moved the Occupied Territories Bill to ban products from those regions, also Fatin al Tamimi, from Palestine and Chairperson of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Some of these parties have moved motions in Leinster House, home of the Irish Parliament, for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland. The Irish government successfully opposed that motion and also opposes joining the South African motion.
The motivation of the concerned party representatives may well mirror their own personal or political feelings, some more than others but it is undeniable that it reflect the feeling across most of Ireland (with the notable exception of Loyalist areas in the British colony).
That has been the general case for decades but has grown enormously since the Zionist State’s genocidal bombardment of Gaza. Every week has seen large marches, rallies and smaller pickets in solidarity with Palestine in Irish cities and towns.
The Department of Foreign Affairs’ main office was paint-bombed in red, the company leasing the Israeli Ambassador’s offices was occupied, as was a hotel bought with a loan from an Israeli bank and also Axa Insurance, the Embassy was briefly occupied and is regularly picketed.
MacDonald’s and Starbucks have also been picketed in various areas and supermarkets have seen regular protests over their sale of goods from the Zionist State. Drivers regularly beep their horns in support as they pass Palestinian solidarity demonstrations.
Photographed at the press conference announcing their joint call, from left to right: Senator Frances Black (Independent), Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Fatin al Tamimi (Chair IPSC), Matt Carthy (Sinn Féin), Gary Gannon (Progressive Democrats), Ivana Bacik (Labour Party). (Photo from: Breaking News report)
THE PARLIAMENTARY PARTIES SUPPORTING THE CALL
The number and pitch of the protests and the numbers involved have definitely pushed some of the parties forward in parliamentary action, in particular Sinn Féin, widely expected to form the next Irish government coalition (though with whom remains to be seen).
Though the party was quick to ride the earlier anti-Russian publicity and call for the Russian Ambassador’s expulsion, it initially balked at doing the same with regard to the Israel one; however it had to support the call in answer to popular opinion and no doubt within its own membership.
The position of the Social Democrats on the question has been surprisingly strong and it was their leader who moved the Ambassador expulsion motion in Leinster House.2 The Labour Party3 has not been generally vocal on the issue though supported the expulsion call.
People Before Profit4 has always had a strong pro-Palestine stand but one of its leading members and TDs5 also attacked the Palestinian incursion on October 7th. Later the party developed the slogan for demonstrations that “In the face of occupation, resistance is an obligation!”
The South African case of genocide against the Israeli State seems to be gaining some support but few governments have so far joined it, despite the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium and others advocating its support. The EU itself has hardly blinked in its support for the Israeli State.
THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
The ICJ is an organ of the United Nations and, like the International Criminal Court, with which it is often confused, is based in the Hague, Netherlands. There have been criticisms of its effectiveness and its likelihood of bias according to the state origin of each Judge.
At this moment, the main benefit of the legal charge against is the Zionist state is of public opinion against its genocidal bombing but the ICJ can also impose interim restrictions. Whether the Israeli State will obey those or indeed accept an eventual ruling against it is another matter entirely.
The Israeli state’s founding philosophy of Zionism is a genocidal one as is also its very nature of a white European settler occupation of a land already occupied by indigenous populations. It is difficult to imagine how it can tolerate condemnation of its very essence.
Nevertheless, for the moment the case and increased support for it has publicity value. However, the solidarity movement cannot afford to relax on iota and in fact needs to up the pressure on the Zionist entity and all its supporters, be they states or corporations.
End.
Footnotes
1TD = Teachta Dála, elected Parliamentary representative.
2Her speech to the rally outside Leinster House the evening of the debate was more militant than Sinn Féin’s representative.
3The party, though founded by militant syndicalist Jim Larkin and revolutionary James Connolly, has been in coalition government a few times, mostly with the right-wing Fine Gael and was noted for attacks on the working class, despite its trade union support base.
4Like its namesake in Britain, it is mainly a version of the Irish iteration of the Socialist Workers’ Party, founded in the UK.
We need to be careful when elevating people from our ranks to the status of heroes – especially if they are alive and can renounce or betray the principles they originally fought for.1
And we have the right to be suspicious when those heroes are also acclaimed by the capitalists and imperialists, those who are certainly not our friends. But most of all, it is by their fruits that we can best evaluate people, whatever their past actions.
The society bequeathed after years of heroic struggle to the South African masses is broken. Housing and homelessness crisis,2 unemployment, poverty,3 prostitution, lack of medical care, inadequate sanitation and soaring crime, including violent crime – is not what the people fought for.
And this is occurring in a country rich in natural resources4 which are being extracted daily by imperialism, while the few on top — the earlier white settler bosses now joined by the corrupt black bourgeoisie – live in luxury.
(Image sourced: Research Gate)
CRIME & POLICING
Anton Koen, a former police officer who now runs a private security firm that specialises in tracking and recovering hijacked and stolen vehicles believes that “It’s not getting better, it is getting worse”, with the murder rate the highest it’s been in 20 years.
(Photo cred: AP)
In crime-ridden societies, the poor suffer the most and are of course also recruited into crime.
There were 27,494 killings in South Africa in the year to February 2023, compared with 16,213 in 2012-2013. South Africa’s homicide rate in 2022-2023 was 45 per 100,000 people, compared with a rate of 6.3 in the US and around one in most European countries.
Those who can afford it, hire private security, which is a booming business with South Africa’s security industry — one of the largest in the world, with more than 2.7 million registered private security officers registered in the country, according to the regulating agency, the PSIRA.5
“People with money make up a very small percentage of South Africa, said Chad Thomas, an organised crime expert who has worked more than 30 years in police work and now in private security.6
“That means that the vast majority of South Africans don’t really benefit from this security industry … If you live in a traditional township environment, or if you live in an informal settlement …7 security patrols in those areas are few and far between because they don’t have paying customers.”
Thomas, like many, ties the high levels of violent crime in South Africa to anger over the country’s deep problems of poverty.8
Private security companies are paid a monthly fee to patrol neighbourhoods and for providing armed response to their clients’ alarm systems. Tracking and car recovery can be part of the service, often resulting in getting involved in high-speed chases of car thieves and hijackers.
According to the PSIRA, the number of security businesses in South Africa grew by 43 per cent in the past decade, while the number of registered security officers has increased by 44 per cent. Meanwhile there are 150,000 police officers for the country’s 62 million people.
It is hardly surprising that the SA police force has difficulty in recruiting numbers. It is a force used to violently repress people9 and culpable in the worst massacre of working people in South Africa’s modern history, killing 40 striking miners over a couple of days.
That slaughter occurred in 2012 at the British-owned Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, when miners wished create a new union and to leave the National Union of Mineworkers which, they said, was more in favour of their employers than the workers.10
Cyril Ramaphosa, the millionaire ex-President of the NUM was widely suspected of having organised the massacre and he’s now President of the ANC and of the South African Government. At the time, Jacob Zuma was President, now in the process of being tried for financial corruption.
But Mandela was still alive and at liberty when the massacre occurred and did not condemn the atrocity nor those responsible. Long-time anti-apartheid campaigner (and Mandela’s friend) Bishop Tutu once famously commented that “The ANC stopped the gravy train – long enough to get on it.”11
IMPORTANT
Is it important whether this person or that were truly the heroes they are reputed to have been? I think it is, not only because we tend to erect them as models for our behaviour but also because their lives and their choices present us with historical lessons.
The South African regime during the struggle was a white European settler state and like all of those, undemocratic and racist too. The masses rose up several times against it but people did not risk beatings, torture, imprisonment and death merely for the right to vote.
The struggles were so strong and the minority settler regime so emphatically opposed to reforms that its imperialist partners felt it vulnerable to revolution. They eventually convinced the regime to enfranchise the majority black population.
But what if the black masses went on kick out the imperialists?
The change had to be managed and the leadership of the ANC, the NUM and the Communist Party of South Africa proved willing to control their supporters. However, something else was needed, as in similar circumstances: a known face, a hero, to be the figurehead before the masses.
Representative of USA, chief imperialist country and Nelson Mandela after latter’s release.
Mandela proved to be that man, not only for his long imprisonment for guerrilla action but because he had been tested among the political prisoners on Roben Island and was judged the most suitable, so he had been separated from the other political prisoners to a new jail for grooming.
Mandela, after a huge publicity buildup around the world, was released in 1990 and began a series of negotiations with the settler minority’s leadership. In 1994, with universal suffrage, Mandela was easily elected head of the ANC and of the new government of South Africa.
Of the wave of pacification processes that swept around the world starting in the very early 90s with Al Fatah in Palestine, the South African process turned out to be the only one that delivered any of the objectives of what was promised12 — and that was the vote for everyone.
But it had the potential beyond that gain: of national liberation, the possession of all its natural resources and of a progressive social order, a beacon for the rest of Africa. It was important for imperialism to prevent all that and, with the help of the leaders of the ANC, NUM and CPSA, they did so.
The immediate result was a drop even further in the standard of living of the masses and an increase in the rapacious grip of imperialism on the natural resources, while municipal services declined further and crime at the bottom took off, matching corruption at the top.
The broken society there now is the cumulative result and should serve as a lesson about pacification processes, negotiations during struggle and our choices of heroes – or those chosen for us.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1As we in Ireland can testify, with the lionisation of Michael Collins, for example, for his role in the War of Independence (1919-1921) but who, a little later, acted on behalf of the Irish colonial bourgeoisie and their British masters to launch the Civil War (1922-1923) to prevent the establishment of a 32-County Republic.
3 As of 2023, around 18.2 million people in South Africa are living in extreme poverty, with the poverty threshold at1.90 U.S. dollars daily (see Statista in Sources & References).
10It was notable that those popular organisations deeply implicated in pacification processes either reported with great restraint on the massacre or failed, like the Left-Nationalist Basque trade union LAB, to comment on it at all (to say nothing of sending a solidarity message to the striking workers or denouncing the State).
Yes, you peace-loving liberals, we told you but you wouldn’t listen. Told you that Zionism means racism, colonial settler expansion and, ultimately, genocide. But you wouldn’t listen. And you’re not listening now.
There just had to be a way of resolving things so everyone got something and then there would be peace, you all said.
People like you think all that has to happen for peace is that both sides sit down and talk. But what if what one wants is irreconcilable with what the other wants? Well, then you say, they both have to give up something.
The problem with that is that it’s always the oppressed who have to give up the most – or even everything. However, that’s necessary, because that’s how we get peace, you say. But would you apply it to yourselves as easily?
If a thief got your wallets, would you suggest sitting down and talking it over with him or her? Maybe suggesting s/he only stole half the contents? Well, you might, I suppose. But what if they got your cars, your houses and emptied your bank accounts?
You’d very quickly resort to violence! Oh, not you personally, of course not! You’d get the police to use force for you and a judge to use force to put them in jail and prison officers to use force to keep them in jail for an allotted time, to try and ensure they didn’t steal from you again.
We told you that the only peace the Zionists could achieve would be the peace of the Palestinian cemetery; but as many graves as the Zionists dug for the Palestinians, more would rise up fighting and they would never give up their land or agree to be kept down.
Every time the Zionists carried out a massacre or another atrocity, we told you: the only solution to this conflict is a unitary democratic state of Palestine, “from the River to the Sea”. But you wouldn’t listen.
And even now, as you begin to talk about “peace again” “after Gaza”, it’s clear you haven’t learned. The massacre of 22,600, including over 9,000 children, the ruins of Gaza, refugee camps, hospitals, mosques, water and sewage treatment plants have taught you nothing.
Because here you are again, proposing something other than the rational solution, in this case re-marketing the two-state plan. All the imperialists agree and you’ll get Abbas and the corrupt Al Fatah to go along as before of course but the Palestinian people as a whole will never do so.
The irony is that by pushing your kind of ‘peace’ measure and avoiding real peace, you are effectively advocating the conditions for war without end – or wiping out/ expulsion of the Palestinians. Really, it would be better if you just shut up and stop trying to ‘help’.
Because the only ones you’re helping are the genocidal Zionists and their imperialist backers.
British TV personality Rachel Riley shared with the media that she is feeling sombre on New Year’s eve with reference to the conflict in Gaza. We could all empathise with that were it not for her further elucidation.
So, what makes you “somber” Rachel, is the number of Israeli settlers killed on October 7th– not the genocidal slaughter of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including women and children?
From some points of view, it is entirely understandable that should be making you somber three months later. But what is not understandable in any sense of humanity, Rachel, is that you are not in the least somber about the genocide being carried out every day.
A genocide that in just three months has taken the lives of tipping at 23,000, destroyed refugee camps, clinics, hospitals, ambulances, mosques, schools, bakeries, water treatment plants, whole neighbourhoods, fishing boats, and left a dislocated 1.9 million to starve and die from disease.
It is recorded that you give talks on a genocide committed nearly a century ago – for which you have been awarded an imperialist honour — but apparently the one occurring now does not move you.
Even for someone with Zionist credentials1 that seems shocking — but perhaps we shouldn’t be shocked, for genocide is both the excuse, the aim and the practice of Zionism.
In an Instagram post on Sunday, you wrote that “Holocaust education feels present and urgent” since the attack by Hamas on October 7th. We agree — but not in the way you meant it, which was as a justification for the holocaust being visited upon the Palestinians.
Which would be bad enough if they had been the ones who carried out the other genocide, the one (the only one, apparently) which concerns you, but they aren’t. No, in fact, many of those states that carried out the genocide against the Jews are the very ones endorsing and supplying this slaughter.
Yes, the Palestinian offensive on 7th October last year was brutal – it was a military operation. But how does it compare in scale and number of occasions to the brutal massacres carried out by the ‘Israeli’ state in the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their very land and ever since?
You claimed that “As a result (of the Palestinian attack), incidents of anti-Jewish hate are surging around the world”. Of course, we know that Zionists constantly try to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-semitism, even accusing anti-Zionist Jews of being “self-hating.”
But if anti-semitic incidents are indeed on the rise, do you not think that the bestial genocidal acts of the Zionist state might be a more likely source for such incidents? Along with the feeling of powerlessness engendered by the complicity of the major powers in the genocide?
You expressed a wish “for an end to the violence in Gaza and the region as soon as possible that allows for stable and safe home for everyone there to be able to live in peace.” We might be able to join you in that wish, “as every decent person” might, if we didn’t know what you really mean.
What homes remain to the people in Gaza, Rachel? What you mean is the ‘peace’ in ‘Israel’ before 7th October last year.
What you want is the ‘peace’ of the end of Palestinian resistance to the wholesale robbery of their land, to the expulsion of refugees, to the thousands of indignities heaped upon a people made second-class denizens in their own land, where they cannot even be citizens.
Expelled from houses in Jerusalem, houses elsewhere demolished, water and sewage treatment plants ruined, fishermen forbidden beyond their polluted shores and harassed even there. Prisons full of Palestinians, even children, sentenced by military courts and many not even convicted.
Constantly under pressure from the encroachment of armed zealot European settlers even into the ‘reservations’ the State allows the Palestinians with the Gaza open prison deliberately kept at subsistence level, with no legal way in or out except by Zionist permission under Zionist guns.
We note that you were a forefront campaigner against the left-social-democrat Jeremy Corbyn. As a revolutionary I have more than one bone to pick with him but your campaign and that of the others with you was a complete fraud: there was no more anti-semitism there than anywhere else.
In fact, once again, it was the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-semitism which was the real issue and shamelessly used by Corbyn’s enemies and competition within the imperialist British Labour Party to overthrow his leadership.
MATHEMATICS
It is recorded that you are a qualified mathematician so I have some questions for you around numbers and statistics: how many Palestinians is it justified to kill to avenge the “around 1,200” claimed killed by the Palestinian incursion operation?
Or how many Palestinian civilians is it justifiable to kill for those Israelis killed? The Zionist state improbably claims it has killed 8,500 Palestinian fighters and if we deduct that figure from the overall number of those killed, 23,000, it still means the killing of 14,500 civilians since October.
On the other hand, from an analyst’s estimated death toll of 3,500 Palestinian fighters,2 that means that the Zionist death toll of Palestinian civilians is 19,500. How do you justify that as payback for the revised figure of 1,200 Israeli civilians killed in the Palestinian operation of 7th October?
But even that figure is false, isn’t it? Because many of those killed were Israeli soldiers, right? And most military age Israelis are either serving soldiers or reservists, like the ones called up to take part in the current genocide.
And now Bituah Leumi, Israel’s social security agency on its website lists 695 people killed during the attack, over half of which were Israeli security personnel, with names and the alleged circumstances of their deaths (but of course the media will keep repeating the old numbers).
And then even those can’t all be added to the total Israelis killed by Palestinian fighters on that day, since we know from Israeli civilian and army testimonies that many of the Israelis were killed by the IOF in panic, in crossfire or in deliberate shelling according to the “Hannibal” doctrine.3
So, after a quick “countdown” of which you are surely capable, Riley, how many indigenous Palestinian lives may justifiably be taken for each Israel settler in the Zionist colony? And what would happen, though I do not encourage it, if the Palestinians were to reverse the ratios?
End.
FOOTNOTES
1In case of confusion let me state clearly that has everything to do with your political outlook and next to nothing to do with your ethnic group or your mother’s.
If we truly want to help the Palestinians, we need to stop calling for a “ceasefire” and also stop calling for implementation of the “two state” option.
A ceasefire is a temporary measure agreed between or imposed on all the belligerents in an armed conflict and indeed the Irish word for it, sos comhraic, conveys that perfectly: “a break/ rest during conflict”.
The Israeli attack on Gaza is nothing like an armed conflict between two sides that are in any kind of balance: the Palestinians have no air force, no navy and only a guerrilla resistance. And overwhelmingly, in their thousands, it is Palestinian civilians who are being targeted.
Drawing of Palestinian fighter by political cartoonist Carlos Latuff (Image sourced: Internet)
Nor is there any question about the justice of competing claims: the Palestinians are the indigenous people on the land for centuries1 whilst the Israeli state is a European colonial occupation of Palestinian land, practicing genocide upon the indigenous people and backed by imperialism.
If what we want is to save lives, in particular civilian lives, we want the Israeli State to stop bombing the Palestinians by bombs and missiles, right? So surely the most accurate and least mixed messages demand would be “Stop the bombing! Now!”?
No ambivalence there at all.
But if we only want a temporary ceasefire so some food and medicine can be delivered to people who will be killed in the following days, well then “Ceasefire now!” is the one for us.
Or if we think the two sides are evenly balanced militarily, or we’re confused about whose cause is just and don’t necessarily think the Palestinians have the right to wage armed struggle against an armed occupier, well then “Ceasefire now!” by all means.
And if we think the Palestinians don’t have the right to resist invasion and occupation, then we can demand the contradictory “permanent ceasefire now” which is a binding on both the occupied and the occupier.2
Dozens killed in 1st November Israeli air attack on Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. (Photo sourced: Internet). The camp had been hit four times before this from October 9th and was hit again on six different occasions afterwards in November, then another 11 separate times in December so far.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabalia_refugee_camp_airstrikes,_2023
So, as an endgame, what about the “two state option”? The rulers of most of the Middle Eastern Arab states support it, as do the leaders of the USA, China, UK and all the EU States.3 And so does the Al Fatah organisation, which runs the Palestinian Government.4
Well yes, but most Palestinians don’t! And at least a sizeable chunk of Israelis don’t either.5 It is the only “solution” being proposed by most commentators and is in complete contradiction to the only real solution, which is a unitary democratic state with right to return of Palestinian refugees.
“Well, that’s a non-starter!” we might be told. “The rulers of Israel will never agree to that. Nor will the rulers of the USA, UK and EU states.” The implication there is that they, rather than the Palestinians, are the ones who can set the red lines.
And if we outside Palestine promote this option, we are saying that colonial occupation and genocide is OK. Presumably the next step would be to condemn the “dissidents” who are “rejecting peace”, even though those “dissidents”, political and military, represent the majority view.
And we’d be saying that the Palestinians should be glad to accept less than 40% of their land, the worst of it with the least water and under Zionist guns forever.
It also happens to be unworkable, with the thousands of Zionist settlers who have “illegally” occupied the territory. But making much of that factor is a mistake since firstly it is not the point and secondly can give rise to pointless and unprincipled discussion about how to make it viable.6
But of course, this discussion is about slogans, which are important in pointing out direction. But they are also, as the Irish language origin of the word7 suggests, a call to action. And if we want to help Palestine, we must act – and continue in effective actions.
STOP THE BOMBING – NOW! END THE OCCUPATION – NOW!
FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA – PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The Palestinian population before the founding of the Zionist state, even with Zionist-organised immigration, was less that 10% Jewish, with smaller percentages of Christian etc, the vast majority Muslim. They were mostly Arab with smaller groups of Berber.
2Although as we have seen, no power currently on Earth is capable – or in cases of capability, such as the EU and USA, willing – to force the Israeli Zionists to stick to any agreement.
4The most popular resistance organisations in Palestine were the secular ones, Al Fatah first and PFLP second. Al Fatah jumped at the ‘two state’ proposal which gave them, through the Palestine National Authority, their own government to run, funded by the EU and USA with greater opportunities for corruption. Their corruption and collusion with Israel was so pronounced that in the 2006 elections, Hamas got most votes and seats, ruling Gaza as a result but not the West Bank, despite their majority. There have been no elections since but funds are still flowing in to the PNA and Al Fatah.
5Most Israelis perhaps for different reasons than those of the Palestinians who reject it.
It has been said that with one phone call from Joe Biden to Netanyahu the genocide in Gaza could be halted.
Comparisons have been made to Reagan doing just that with the Irgun terrorist, Menachem Begin, who was the Israeli Prime Minister during the siege of Beirut in 1982 or Obama in later years.
Little has been said of the European Union’s equal capacity to make a similar call and bring an end to the slaughter. The EU is not a minor player in the region, and Israel is as much dependent on the EU as it is on the USA, though in a slightly different manner.
From the start the EU decided to support Israel, come hell or high water, and hell it was to be, for the Palestinians. Ursula von der Leyen stated that Israel had the right to defend itself against what she termed terrorism and that “Europe stands with Israel”.1
Ursula von der Leyen, taken at a time when EU staffers complained about her bias in favour of Israel (Photo credit: EPA-EFE/JULIEN WARNAND)
A month later, as the gravity of Israeli plans were clear for all to see, she continued to talk about the Hamas attack on October 7th, much of which has now been proven to be false (there were no decapitated babies, many of the dead were Israeli military not civilians and furthermore Israel itself killed many of the civilians).
She made no condemnation of Israeli bombings of civilians. She and the EU still stood by Israel.2
But on October 20th 842 staffers at the EU signed a letter condemning her position and pointing out she was legitimising a war crime in Gaza, and pointed to her support for the blockade of food and water in Gaza.3
But Von der Leyen continued as before and still stands by Israel and its “right to self-defence”, despite the evidence that what Israel is engaged in, is genocide and multiple war crimes.
Some have made reference to the Nazi past of her family, and though interesting, it is not the reason for her support nor that of the EU, though it may affect the tone of her statements.
In evaluating her behaviour we should, of course, bear in mind her aristocratic and Nazi past, of which she is apparently very proud of and has made reference to.
But they are just anecdotes, others with a clean family tree have also supported Israel.
The reason why the EU supports Israel is one of naked self-interest. Like the USA, the EU has decided that Israel is also its very own Forward Operating Base to keep in check the Arab masses and ensure the flow of oil.
The EU was in a position to halt the genocide from the word go. Von der Leyen could have told Israel to back off and it would have. Without the EU, the Israeli economy collapses.
A ban on exporting to or importing from Israel would see the modern-day Babylon collapse overnight with little effect on Europe itself. Israel is the EU’s 25th largest trading partner, way behind Turkiye which is the EU’s sixth largest trading partner.
However, the reverse does not hold. The EU is a significant trading partner for Israel.
According to the European Commission’s Office in Israel (Von der Leyen & Co.) 31.9% of Israeli imports come from the EU and 25.6% of Israel’s exports go to the EU with total trade amounting to €46.8 billion in 2022.
Israeli imports of services amounted to €16.7 billion in 2021 with exports representing €9.8 billion. Further the EU invested €60.5 billion in 2021. Israel depends on the EU.4 One phone call is all it would have taken to put Netanyahu in his place and stop the genocide.
European complicity in the genocide is not limited to its economic role. Between 2012 and 2022, Israel received just over 5.4 billion US dollars in arms transfers, from three sources. Unsurprisingly, the USA was the primary supplier.
But Germany supplied Israel with $1.475 billion and Italy supplied a further $261 million. In the same period, Israel exported $7.458 billion to a range of countries, including the UK, bastions of democracy such as Azerbaijan ($854 million), Turkiye ($60 million).
But by far the biggest recipient was India which received $2.879 billion.5
The type of weaponry received is important. Israel received $2.734 billion in aircraft, $609 million in armoured vehicles, $752 million in missiles, just the type of weaponry it has used to reduce Gaza to rubble and carry out its genocide.
Israeli Merkava 4 tank in exercise on occupied ground in the Golan Heights 2016; it and other armoured vehicles carry German engines, according to arms watch organisation SIPRI which believes them to be in operation in Gaza now. (Photo: Ariel Schalit/AP)
All of those regimes who supplied Israel with weaponry are as guilty as the Israelis. After Operation Cast Lead (December 2008 – January 2009) it was obvious what type of regime held sway in Tel Aviv.
They have repeated this type of operation on many occasions since then, with major interventions and also a number of smaller, though still deadly attacks.
The nature of the Zionist regime was laid bare to the world, and yet the EU continued to export the type of weapons needed to carry out a genocide.
The nature of the Zionist regime was laid bare to the world, and yet the EU continued to export the type of weapons needed to carry out a genocide.
Hopefully, some day in the future we can hold a Nuremberg-style tribunal to judge those responsible. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, places obligations on states and gives them the authority to try people for the crime of Genocide.6
To be clear about what genocide is, the convention to which most states are signatories defines it in Article II as:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.7
Israel was one of the first signatories to it and has made no reservations on any aspect of it, unlike the USA which has placed some caveats on its jurisdiction in relation to the USA.8
Photo of Nuremberg defendants during the Nuremberg Trials. Will there one day be such a tribunal sitting on the Israeli war criminals and their international accomplices? (Photo sourced: Internet)
Following WWII not only were the Nazis tried at Nuremberg, other Nazis were tried by individual states in the subsequent years. Countries such as France, Germany, Israel, Norway and others brought Nazis to trial after the Nuremberg Trials.
In Hungary alone, around 26,000 people were tried for treason, war crimes and crimes against humanity. In Czechoslovakia around 32,000 people met a similar fate. Some 100,000 Germans and Austrians were tried in Western Europe and in the Soviet Union another 26,000 were also tried.9
Any nation can place those accused of genocide on trial. To date it has been a question of power. The US won the war in the East and so were not charged for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Nearly all those tried for crimes against humanity have been on the losing side of a conflict in which the US and Europe wished to punish one side.
It is entirely conceivable that the powers that make up the BRICS10 could detain war criminals and place them on trial in a national or supranational court convened by them. It is possible though unlikely.
It is however necessary. International law is dead, buried under the rubble of churches, mosques and hospitals in Gaza.
Netanyahu and the entire High Command of the IDF should stand trial like Göring and others did and should face the same consequences as Eichmann who the Israelis tried and executed by hanging.
Ten top ranking Nazis were executed, with Göring committing suicide the night before his scheduled execution. Others should meet another fate as did those lower ranking Nazis in subsequent trials. Various EU leaders should also be tried.
Von der Leyen is a key case and should meet the fate her Nazis family escaped from. Keir Starmer, Macron, Merkel, Rushi Sunak and others should all be put on trial and at the very least imprisoned. Europe is as much to blame for the current genocide as the USA and Israel itself.
6 See Article IV Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals. Article V The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention, and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III. Article VIII Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III.
The German Nazis invaded France during the Second World War, however, they did not occupy all of France, opting instead to leave a part of it in the hands of collaborationist government with its administrative centre in the city of Vichy.
This government, under the command of Marshall Petain, a French first world war hero, collaborated closely with the Nazis, repressing the French resistance and deporting Jews to the camps.
Marshal Philippe Pétain (left) with Adolf Hitler in Montoire-sur-le-Loir, France, October 1940. (Photo cred: Roger Viollet/Getty Images)
In addition, freeing up German troops to fight the war by taking over the daily work of occupation. Nowadays, the term Vichy is synonymous with “collaborator with an occupation”, betrayal and surrender.
Although the phrase originated in the context of the Nazi occupation of France, it can be applied to many conflicts following the second World War.
The Palestinian Authority government has a lot in common with Vichy. Following the Oslo Accords the PA took over the repression of the more coherent and revolutionary factions, just as Marshal Pétain had done in Vichy.
It also freed up Zionist troops and police forces from the daily work of occupation and collaborates closely with the fascist regime in Tel Aviv.
Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State and Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, on Blinken’s recent visit to ‘Israel’ during the Israeli genocidal bombing. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Over the years this government has bent the knee time and again to the Israelis, sometimes begging the Western powers to intervene on issues such as settlements in the West Bank. At no point has it led a struggle against the Zionists.
In fact, it presents itself as the reasonable representative with whom negotiations can happen and agreements reached.
Now Israel commits endless war crimes in Gaza and is carrying out a genocide in Gaza against the Palestinians.
It aims to wipe Palestinians off the map, expel them from Gaza and also the West Bank, take control over sacred sites, such as the Al Aqsa Mosque destroy it and build their own temple in its place.
And what does the Vichy regime do in the face of such crimes? Little. It sticks to begging the West to put an end to the barbarity, ignoring that these same powers have always supported Israel, politically, militarily and economically.
It does have other options, but they require them declaring war on the Zionist regime and calling on the Arab masses to unite. Such a revolutionary option fills them with fear and they prefer to continue to collaborate with the fascist regime of Tel Aviv.
It could also ask the reactionary Arab regimes for help. But it hasn’t placed the first demand on those governments. First it could demand the expulsion of the Israeli ambassadors and to break all diplomatic and commercial relations with the regime.
Arab states & ‘Israel’, Middle East (Image sourced: Internet)
But it hasn’t done so, nor will it. The Houthi rebels who have been fighting against one of the most reactionary Arab regimes for eight years, namely Saudi Arabia have done more in a few days to strike a blow against the economy of the Zionist regime.
In a short period, the Houthis have attacked at least 12 commercial ships in the Red Sea, according to Yankee military sources. Their attacks have reduced the flow of trade through the sea and Suez Canal.
Four of the five big shipping companies, Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGN Group & Evergreen have suspended shipments through the Red Sea(1) and the company OOCL announced that it would not accept shipments to or from Israel.
And the cost of transport had gone up from USD $1,975 to $2,300 within a few days.(2)
Meanwhile Vichy has done nothing. The Arab regimes have made no demands against Israel and the oil flows not only to Israel but also Great Britain and the USA. Without the Vichy regime, Israel would have had greater problems in the region.
Not only should the Zionist regime fall, but also the Arab regimes and the Vichy government of Palestine. They are all, in their own way, responsible for the genocide in ´Gaza.
There is no doubt that the genocidal bombing of Palestine has radically politicised people around the world, exposing the Zionist colonial state of ‘Israel’ and its US and other imperialist backers to a greater degree than ever before.
The effect has been hugely but not alone on the mass of people and especially the young, it has been felt also on democratic organisations, pushing them towards more revolutionary positions and actions. Even representatives of states have had to pay close attention to what they say and do.1
There probably has not been a situation of anti-imperialist radicalisation to a similar degree around the world since the USA’s war in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia – of which the death of Kissinger this month was a reminder, if one were needed).2
Section of the march to the US Embassy passing through Baggot Street on Saturday (Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach) (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Dublin saw thousands on its streets again at the weekend in a march towards the US Embassy, while Axa Insurance was occupied and picketed during the week for its investment in genocide. It seemed that every town across the land also saw a demonstration or picket.
The US Ambassador to Ireland’s residence was also picketed on the occasion he had invited Irish politicians and “VIPs” to a meal.
On Tuesday the broad Saoirse Don Phalaistín group organised an occupation of the Israeli Embassy with a picket of about sixty people outside, of different groups and individual activists. Furthermore, it became clear that the State was reluctant to create ‘martyrs’ with arrests.
Picket outside the Zionist Embassy Tuesday with some protesters in occupation before those were removed by Public Order Unit Gardaí (Photo sourced: Anti-Imperialist Action)
THE “FREE PRESS”
The mass media is an integral part of the imperialist system and that too has come under huge criticism.
The western mass media, “the free press” of the western capitalist world, has undergone a huge exposure of its biased reporting (and censorship, particularly on social media). Every atrocity committed by Israel has been represented as ‘caused’ by the Palestinian attack of 7th October.
On the other hand, the attacks of the Palestinian resistance have never been presented as what they truly are and have always been: responses to occupation, genocide, banishment, racism, murder, torture, land-theft and massive bombings by Israel.
Every lie of the Zionist administration and of its imperialist allies, including such patently ridiculous horror stories as ‘beheading of Israeli babies’ and ‘rape and mutilation of Israeli women’ has been repeated while entirely likely accusations by Palestinians have been treated as dubious.
Conversely, within the settler colony itself, some parts of its mass media have exposed the panicky reaction of its military to the October 7th incursion, in killing hostages along with their Palestinian captors and the very recent killing of three escaped or released Israeli hostages.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
THE “DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS”
The allegedly democratic state institutions have fared no better. The European Union was exposed in its voting and by words of its Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, as a profoundly imperialist backer of Israeli Zionism (e.g fulsomely celebrating the anniversary of the state’s founding3).
According to reports, the EU last week failed even to call for a ceasefire, despite a large majority of states being in favour. The opposition of the minority was so strong that they decided to completely avoid formally discussing the matter at all!4
The United Nations was exposed as a profoundly undemocratic body in that the vast majority of its member states wished the Israeli bombing to stop but were unable to force the Zionist state to comply, even with formally registered votes.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Only decisions of the Security Council are compulsory on the 193 members and any Permanent Member of that Council can veto any resolution. There are only five of those: UK, France, USA, Russia and China — and the USA vetoed the call for unilateral Israeli ceasefire.
The USA has consistently opposed any resolution that went counter to what Israel intends and recently twice vetoed a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow food, medicine and water to reach the besieged and displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
This was countered last week by a massive majority of the General Assembly voting for such a motion, which however has no obligatory effect by UN rules, thereby exposing the inherent undemocratic nature of the institution but also isolating the USA from its clients and allies.5
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
In fact, the voting in the Security Council and in the General Assembly exposed fractures in European imperialist unity too, since the UK abstained and France voted for the ceasefire.
The allies of the USA fear that the actions of Israel are destabilising the Middle East and feel that the USA should be pressurising rather than backing the Zionist state.
When put under pressure reactionary alliances tend to strain and fracture and this too is a sign that events are developing along lines favourable to revolution.
The International Criminal Court, which a number of liberals and social democrats hope will try Israel for war crimes and genocide was also exposed, not only by its own record to date but by the biased actions of its Prosecutor Karim Khan on a recent visit to the Zionist state.6
Despite the overwhelmingly majority sympathy for and empathy with the Palestinians in many states, their rulers have not responded to anything like the degree wished for and demanded by their citizens, neither in states of the “western world” nor in those of the Arab or Muslim worlds.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The rulers of the German and French “democracies” have widened the gap by banning Palestine solidarity demonstrations and persecuting people wearing the keffiyeh (and in the case of France, previously outlawing wearing of traditional muslim dress in public places by women).
In Britain, the idea of banning the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!” as “antisemitic” was proposed by the Home Secretary7 and a number of direct activists and even posterers on social media have been arrested under criminal and even anti-terrorist legislation.
The British imperialist Labour Party has been exposed too by the words of its leader Keir Starmer; denunciations during his visit to his party’s organisation in Scotland exposed not only Starmer’s unpopularity but his party’s too, along with the massive support for Palestine there.
THEIR ACTIONS MAKE THINGS WORSE FOR THEM
When the enemy’s repressive actions make things worse, rather than better for them, it is a sign that revolutionary opportunities are on the rise.
Direct actions are an essential component of revolution and such have been on the rise too, from occupations of Government offices and buildings complicit with Zionism in Ireland, for example, to occupations and blockades of arms companies in Britain and of shipments in the USA.
Whether these actions are motivated in part by frustration at the lack of progress by other means or through revolutionary understanding, they put the system under greater pressure and tend to isolate the reformists while the activists gain deeper education about the nature of the system.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The world has witnessed unity in action too, with Hezbollah8 missiles launched from Lebanon against the Israelis causing casualties; but 60 martyrs of the resistance organisation have also fallen to Israeli bombs and missiles9 and Lebanese non-combatants have also, including journalists.
Houthi attacks on shipping off Yemen have caused disruption and financial cost to several major freight companies – including MSC and Maersk – which have begun to sail around Africa instead.
About 15% of shipping traffic regularly transited via the Suez Canal, the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia. Combined, the companies that have diverted vessels “control around half of the global container shipping market,” ABN Amro analyst Albert Jan Swart told Reuters.10
Oil major extractor British Petroleum has also temporarily paused all transits through the Red Sea following the attacks over the weekend.11
Most impressive of all however has been the unity and coordination of the Palestinian armed resistance itself.
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades is Hamas’ armed wing and the party is a Muslim fundamentalist organisation, as are also Palestine Islamic Jihad. But the Lion’s Den, Jenin Brigades and Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades of the Popular Resistance Committees are mixed.
The Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine12 and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine are secular, socialist organisations yet they and the Islamic organisations are fighting the Israeli state in unity coordinated through the Joint Operations Room.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
PRISONERS, HOSTAGES, CIVILIANS
The current struggle has also brought to light the huge numbers and treatment of Palestinian prisoners of the Zionist state, including women and children, when some of the latter were exchanged with prisoners taken by the Palestinian forces in their incursion on 7th October.
This issue also challenged the discourse about ‘rules of war’ regarding civilians about which politicians and media commentators made much in attacking the Palestinian incursion.
The question must be posed as to why the Zionist state can take “prisoners” while the Palestinians take “hostages”?13 Outside the US Embassy on Saturday, an IPSC speaker called Israel’s prisoners “freedom fighters” to loud applause, the first such public stance by the organisation.14
Here in Ireland it is a Republican tradition in December to focus on its members incarcerated in prisons within the Irish neo-colonial and British colonial states. The Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign held its annual event in front of the GPO on Thursday 23rd including Palestinian flags.
Annual Prisoners’ picket for Christmas organised by the Ireland Anti-Internment Committee showing Palestinian and Irish flags (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Sadly it was not only officials embedded in the system but also liberals and some of the Left who condemned the Palestinians for ‘attacks on civilians’, ignoring the fact that civilians and soldiers were being captured to exchange for the many Palestinian civilians behind Israeli prison bars.
Then too, rarely mentioned in the media is the fact that most Israeli men and women are military reservists. On the other hand, of over 20,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli bombing, at least a third are women and children, which shows who it is who really are attacking civilians.15
The draft requirement applies to any citizen or permanent resident, male or female fit to serve and who has reached the age of 18; many of the soldiers who complete their mandatory military service are later obligated to serve in a reserve unit in accordance with the military’s needs.16
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
IN CONCLUSION
The pain, loss and suffering inflicted upon the Palestinians is a horror almost too hard to grasp; it is intended to demoralise the Palestinians and destroy their resistance to colonisation and can create a feeling of helplessness in us, viewing it from afar.
But it is not destroying the resistance of the heroic Palestinian people who are teaching the world a lesson in resistance, an important attribute of humanity. We should not let our resolve be undermined either.
The oppressed people of the world are a step closer to revolution and liberation as a result of this struggle. Let us push forward together.
1This has been particularly the case with regard to the Irish State but not only there.
2Kissinger was a US imperialist strategist and chief advisor to US President Nixon but was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his steering the US out of their disaster in Indochina and thereby devaluing the Nobel Peace Prize forever hence.
3Without of course any mention of the 750,000 Palestinians expelled forever during the creation of the state.
7Suella Braverman; she has since been sacked but not for that, rather for suggesting that the London Metropolitan Police have been “soft” on Palestinian solidarity demonstrators in contrast to their policing of the far-Right. The latter took advantage of her comments to stage a number of actions including some attacks on police and Braverman’s comments were widely criticised by politicians as having helped set that up.
12According to Wikipedia, PFLP is the second-largest organisation in the PLO. However, the PLO has long been dominated by Al Fatah and, due to the latter’s collusion with Israel and imperialism, the PLO has come to lose much support. Hamas and the Islamic fighting organisations are not part of the PLO.
13There is a long Irish history of political prisoners of the English occupation which were often in the earlier centuries named “hostages” and a Republican prisoners’ newspaper
14Of course it may not be that but rather a personal position of the speaker.
As the death toll of Israeli bombing in Gaza long passes the capacity of imagination and as even the means of counting the dead can no longer be accurate, marchers took to Dublin streets in another Palestine solidarity march.
About 18,000 Palestinians have been killed and 49,500 wounded in Israeli attacks since October 7, including 300 in one 24-hour period.
View of section of the rally shortly after arrival at Molesworth Street. Leinster House, home of the parliament of the Irish State can be seen in the distant background but there were Garda barriers between it and the Palestinian supporters (in addition to the normal high railings). (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Despite the debunking of Biden’s claim of “unreliability” of the Gaza mortality statistics, which have been verified as of a high standard, Israeli bombing has now made his words come true. The ability to collect the numbers and names of the dead no longer exists in Gaza.
Not much left of where to treat the wounded or otherwise sick either with all major hospitals in the area gone and less than half remaining in semi-operation. The hospitals were the place of treatment and of data collection for statistics compilation.1 The Zionist armed forces have bombed them too.2
Another section of rally crowd taken facing away from direction of previous photo, i.e towards the rear. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
First the Israelis bombed people to death and now they have also bombed the mechanisms of collecting and checking the data on how many victims. And they have also not only buried thousands under rubble but also bombed the machinery and equipment for digging them out.3
DUBLIN MARCH
The Dublin march organised by the IPSC rallied outside the north city centre’s Garden of Remembrance and then marched down the city’s main street to cross over via O’Connell Bridge to the south side, then describing a half-circle around Trinity College and up Dawson Street.
Ending in Molesworth Street, the marchers found themselves facing Leinster House, the seat of the parliament of the Irish State but kept well back from it by the special Garda barricades near where the IPSC had their speakers’ platform.
Marchers started to drift off a while after arriving and many missed a performance with two kneeling males blindfolded and stripped to their underpants, with hands seemingly tied behind their backs while a young woman led chants in solidarity with Palestine.
Men in Dublin’s Molesworth Street simulate treatment of Palestinian detainees in Gaza by Israeli Army while women lead solidarity chants. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The blindfolded nearly naked men was clearly a reference to the Israeli army having been photographed recently doing the same to a line of their Palestinian prisoners, on the excuse that they were being interrogated regarding possible Hamas membership.4
Another such video purported to be a mass surrender by Palestinians fighters but was debunked as a number were recognised by others, including relatives: a shopkeeper, a journalist and a UN aid worker, while the few hard sources available indicate the IOF5 is far from gaining surrenders. 6
The very existence of such propaganda testifies to the lack of Israeli military success against fighters, as distinct from ‘success’ against civilians, including women and children, hospitals, public sanitation/ water treatment/ health infrastructure, housing, fishing boats …
A notable feature of the Palestinian solidarity marches in Dublin since October 7th has been the appearance of the Irish language in the written and spoken (or shouted) word. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Many bystanders along the Dublin march route applauded the marchers and took photos of them. Some joined in the slogans: From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! In our thousands, in our millions – we are ALL Palestinians!
Other slogans included: Free, free – Palestine! Saoirse – don Phailistín! Zionist Ambassador – Out, out, out! 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state! (I personally answer “Israel is a fascist state” which has long been an appropriate description).
IRISH PEOPLE MOSTLY IN SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE
Many other towns and cities in Ireland had marches, rallies or pickets on Saturday also. The Palestinian flag flies over Dublin City Hall for a week by vote of elected councillors and at least three city halls elsewhere have been lit up at night with Palestinian colours in solidarity.
With the exception of Loyalist areas in the Six Counties awash with Israeli state flags, the Irish overwhelmingly support the Palestinians.
Section of the crowd at the commencement rally outside the Garden of Remembrance, before the march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Irish population overall is clearly pro-Palestinian which, in the current context, is clearly to be pro-humanity. But although the public position of the Irish Government is among the most supportive in the EU of the Palestinians it is not applying hard pressure against the Israeli state.
The Irish state supports the imperialist/ colonialist two-state ‘solution’ (sic) for Zionists and Palestinians, declines to expel the Israeli Ambassador, to apply sanctions, to progress the Occupied Territories Bill or even to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court.
A number of commentators (including two published on Rebel Breeze) have commented how useless such a referral to the ICC would be, except for its propaganda value perhaps. But the bias demonstrated by an ICC Prosecutor shows the situation to be even worse than was thought.
Palestinians complained that the Prosecutor accepted Israeli refusal to allow visiting Gaza but yet spent days visiting Israeli areas attacked by Hamas and declined a Palestinian offer to visit the hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements, checkpoints and refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.
When Prosecutor Kharim Khan finally held a meeting with Palestinians, he spoke at length, leaving them only ten minutes for their own contributions, to their outrage. Although he later gave them an hour, they fear that he has revealed his deep bias against them.7
A new banner seen on this march in Dublin, it bears the logo of the PFLP, words in Arabic and also calls for freedom for Palestine in Irish. (Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
A future government including Sinn Féin may not act very differently; the party supports the 2-State ‘solution’ and was pushing the Government to refer Israel to the ICC. More crucially perhaps will be its close relationship with the USA and its need to work with its future political partners.
The Irish mass media, in line with that of the West, continues to exhibit a deep level of partiality towards Israel, along with hostility towards the Palestinians. The genocidal bombing by Israel is never called that while the short Hamas offensive is called “a rampage”.
The bombing is always presented as a response to the Hamas attack while that attack itself is never portrayed as a response to the many, many Israeli bombings and murders going right back to the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians in the Nakba coinciding with the 1948 foundation of the state.
The most effective and realistic lever for Palestinian-supportive action remains the ordinary mass of Irish people and it is upon their support that we must rely, along with actions making zionist support as difficult and uncomfortable as possible at all levels in Ireland, especially at the higher ones.
End.
Closeup of section of crowd at rallying point, at commencement of march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
4And the relevance of that to stripping and blindfolding? What else but intimidation and humiliation? An eyewitness also reported having seen a number of Palestinian detainees shot for non-compliance.
Demonstrations, like many organised activities, require a certain discipline: time and place set, conduct along the way, speakers and time allocated, dispersing afterwards. But just as discipline helps avoid dangers, its imposition also bring dangers.
I’ve been one of the organisers, or a steward on a number of public events over the years but more often a participant without any particular role.
Once, in London as a steward I was called “a State agent” as I moved to prevent a couple of people leading others out of an Irish demonstration to attack some British fascists and Loyalists who were chanting against us.
For us, the main objective was to hold an Irish solidarity demonstration in London from its start to its finish without giving the London Metropolitan Police and Special Branch the opportunity to disrupt it.1 Attacking fascist jeerers was secondary to our objective on that occasion.
And if those guys really wanted to attack fascists, they should have been travelling parallel to the march (as the Red Action group often did, for example) instead of inside the march body. Then they could have attacked the fascists without any disruption of the march.
I have also been a party on a broad antifascist mobilisation to a refusal to organisers’ direction to march away from the fascists, instead heading towards them with others.2 In those cases the organisers were, in effect, colluding with the State.
PALESTINE SOLIDARITY IN IRELAND
The main organisation for Palestine solidarity in Ireland for decades has been and continues to be the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Its steering group or executive committee is entirely unpaid and works with energy and determination over the years and at times more intensively.
Those intensive times have been with us again since last month in the horrific genocidal Zionist bombing of Gaza and the murderous ground attacks in the West Bank and the IPSC activists have organised large – sometimes huge – marches of solidarity in Dublin every week.
These have been combined with other events such as rallies, concerts and public meetings in the city and marches, rallies and pickets elsewhere to the south, the west and the north of the country.
No organisation however is perfect or right all the time and there are a number of areas and occasions that deserve constructive criticism for improvement.
I do believe that the cancelation of a Palestine solidarity march scheduled for 25th November was a serious error tactically and strategically.
Section of a midweek demonstration in persistent rain organised by the IPSC outside Leinster House, seat of the parliament of the Irish State in October. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
In terms of strategy we must strive as far as is possible not to give ground in the public arena to fascists and other racists since as we vacate ground, they step forward to occupy it. To move the rallying point from the Garden of Remembrance3 made sense but the cancellation not at all.
Tactically, the absence of a Palestine solidarity march that weekend broke the momentum of large public Palestinian solidarity events occurring at least weekly throughout the capital city.4
WHICH SLOGAN?
The IPSC now calls for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador but earlier on in October it refrained from doing so. That was a mistake but what was worse was the attempt to influence others also not to do so, for example with regard to speakers from their platform.
During that period the presence of non-stop chant-leaders shouting the approved slogans, one after another, particularly near groups who might chant for the expulsion of the Ambassador seemed more than a coincidence.
It is good to hear now the ubiquitous “Israeli Ambassador – Out, out, out!” from the IPSC slogan-callers and, though perhaps not the IPSC’s choice, may the one stating that “There is only one solution – Intifada revolution!” be accepted in toleration.
WHICH FLAGS?
At the recent much-diminished Palestine solidarity march in Dublin5 – the first since the cancellation – I witnessed a man and woman acting for the IPSC organisers, they said, approaching a person with a PLFP6 flag, to ask not to fly any flag other than the Palestinian national one.
They were polite and not in any way intimidating; their manner was not the problem but the content of their message was.
Palestinians participate in a rally marking the 52nd anniversary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in Gaza City, December 7, 2019. (Photo cred: Hatem Moussa/ AP)
There are issues where the IPSC should be giving a lead and are of course doing so but just as there are some where they should but are not, this is one where they seem to be attempting to impose a discipline and uniformity that is both unnecessary and unhealthy.
There are organisations that send sacks of their group’s flags and placards to demonstrations to be carried by random participants, swamping the event to make it appear as though their organisation is bigger and more prevalent than is the case, a practice I detest.
It is not as though people are flooding the demonstration with PFLP flags or, indeed, Irish Tricolours and Starry Ploughs, though it seemed that they were not as worried about the latter two.
There are people who support different organisations in Palestine and why should it be a problem for them to fly the flag of the organisation of their choice?
Why should it be a problem for people to realise that there are many Palestinian organisations of struggle in opposition to the one of collusion?
In a demonstration for Irish independence would we demand that only the Tricolour7 could be flown? Or for Catalan independence, only accepting the display of the Senyera?8
WHAT KIND OF PALESTINIAN STATE?
The IPSC is formally neutral on the issue of what kind of Palestinian state to which to aspire, which in some respects is fair enough since that is a matter for the people there to choose. But it is not OK to be neutral on whether the ‘two-state solution’ (sic) is acceptable, never mind viable.
Yes, we know that the imperialists of the EU, USA and UK support that ‘solution’. We know that their allies do, including the Irish Government. We also know that the collaborationist Palestinian organisation9 and most Arab states’ leaders also support that arrangement.
BUT
The two-state solution is one where the settler-occupier gets to keep what he robbed and murdered to get while the indigenous receives less than 40% of her original land and the worst of it, with the least water and, furthermore, under the constant guns of the robbers and murderers.
The diminished part of Palestine being offered to Palestinians under “the 2-state solution” (Image sourced: Internet)
MOST PALESTINIANS POLLED IN PALESTINE REJECT IT.10 And you can guarantee, without polling, that the vast majority of the exiled Palestinian refugees reject it too, since it would close for ever any hope for a return to Palestine for most of them.
The IPSC supports the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” This is, one might say, an implicit rejection of the two-state proposal since it must mean a free Palestine from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean and Red Seas. But how many understand that?
In a world where imperialism is the main support of the European Zionist colonial (and genocidal) project, it is essential that the mass of people understand for what it is that the Palestinians are fighting and what we support, as distinct from what the imperialists want to foist upon them.
PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS
In the struggle for independence and for social justice, right across the world, many people are taken by those in power and put in jail. Solidarity with those prisoners, objections to their conditions and demands for their release have been an important part of those struggles.
This has been well-illustrated in Irish history too and in Britain, the First International (Workingmen’s Association) founded by Marx, Engels and others campaigned in solidarity with the Fenians incarcerated in English jails.
The “blanket protests” and in particular the hunger strikes in colonial jails in Ireland a little over 40 years ago drew huge attention and wide support not only in Ireland but across the world.
All the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are there as a result of the European Zionist occupation of Palestine and the natural resistance of the indigenous people.
When Hamas recently obtained the release of 180 prisoners from Israeli jails, most were women and children. Furthermore, many had not even been convicted in the Israeli military courts but were held in “administrative detention”, in effect, interned without trial.
Palestinian prisoner solidarity protest in Nablus 17 April 2023 (Photo credit: Jaafar Ashtiyeh /AFP)
Though the IPSC has highlighted the number of children in Israeli jails and those in administrative detention, it does not have a position of overall solidarity with the rest of the 100,000 Palestinian prisoners nor in calling for their blanket release.
The organisation has however covered the release of prisoners in the recent exchange and shared reports of the brutality inflicted upon many, particularly after the Hamas offensive on 7th October. One must hope that this process will be extended to solidarity with all the Palestinian prisoners.
Solidarity with political prisoners does not necessarily imply support for their previous actions or for their organisations; what it does is to recognise that all liberation struggles produce martyrs and prisoners due to the repression of resistance to colonialism and occupation.
The existence of the prisoners is a direct result of the colonial occupation and if we oppose that occupation we should stand in solidarity with the prisoners, agitate around their conditions and demand their freedom, along with the departure of the colonists.
IN CONCLUSION
All organisations and movements need to instil some discipline around their activities. All also commit errors from time to time and it is crucial to learn from those in order to improve their effectiveness and to bring nearer the objectives for which they strive.
In their attempt to mediate between the different pressures upon them it is necessary to distinguish between what the dominant system wants or would like and what the movement’s supporters wish, between what is most welcome and what is most necessary.
Rally after large IPSC march 10 October 2023 (Photo sourced: Internet)
The IPSC is an important and valuable organisation in Ireland doing crucial work in the area of solidarity with the Palestinians and, in doing so, contributing to an atmosphere of internationalist solidarity which is essential for the advance of humanity.
While I have not for some years been part of its Dublin organisation I will of course continue to support its marches, rallies and pickets as I have been doing for decades, both in promotion and in attendance.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The police used attacks by fascists and resistance to them on Irish solidarity marches as opportunities to disrupt the march and to arrest march participants.
2The Communist Party of Great Britain despite the history of many of its members in the 1930s, did not wish to physically attack fascists from the late 1960s and tried to steer demonstrations away from direct confrontation, often leading them away from where the fascists were gathered.
3That place is less than 100 metres from the scene of the attack on the children and the march began there the participants would have to pass by the site.
4It also left exposed to attack any small group that went ahead with Palestine solidarity or anti-racism pickets, as some did, in the city centre.
7There is nothing wrong with the Tricolour but some Republicans and socialists prefer the Starry Plough, signifying a more socialist republicanism and also a separation from the State, which has appropriated the Tricolour.
8The original flag of Catalan independence, red stripes on a yellow field — but on Catalan demonstrations the Estelada Blava, including a blue triangle surrounding a white star, for left Republicans, is much more common and the Vermella, with a red star on yellow instead of the white one on blue is quite common also, especially among revolutionary socialists.
9The Al Fatah-dominated PLO from which a number of Palestinian resistance organisations are excluded. They also dominate the Palestinian Authority which has not held elections since Hamas won them in 2008.
rebelbreeze 